Primary Documents - G.M. Trevelyan on the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo, 1917

The summary was written by
the head of the British Red Cross effort in Italy, G.M. Trevelyan.
Click here
to read the view of the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, Thomas Nelson Page.

G.M. Trevelyan, Head of
the British Red Cross in Italy, on the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo

Many began to see little chance of winning the war, as week after week during
that summer and autumn more and more Austrian batteries and battalions gave
evidence of their arrival from the Russian front.

But in spite of all this, the
finest effort of the Italian army was made in the last half of August and the
first half of September, 1917. It was only after that magnificent and largely
successful effort that the fruits of discouragement were reaped in late October.

The month of the most continuously fierce fighting in the whole Italian war
opened on August 18, 1917, with a general bombardment from Tolmino to the sea. The guns massed along the Corada ridge searched the Austrian positions beyond
the Isonzo.

Next day, along the front from Plava northwards to Doblar, the
infantry bridged and crossed the rapid river in face of the enemy, and began to
ascend the eastern bank of the gorge. A more difficult operation, in face of
machine-gun posts and a determined foe entrenched in ground of such vantage, has
seldom been allotted to any force in the world war.

Here and there a politically
weak link in the enemy armour, like the Czechs on Monte Jelenik, rendered a
general success just possible. Gradually, as day followed day of carnage, point
after point was won. The high-lying hamlet of Vrh fell, and Hill 711, keys to a
whole region. Near Plava, operations began with a false attack on Monte Santo to
the south, while to the north the foot of the Robot valley was seized.

But far to northward there was a serious setback. The attempt to turn from the
south the positions of the enemy in the Santa Lucia and Tolmino region was held
to be so important that General Badoglio himself had charge of that operation. But the Austrians could not be dislodged from their fastness round Lom protected
by the steep banks of the Vogercek torrent. By this failure the strategic way
was left open for the disaster of Caporetto.

The fall of Jelenik was followed on the 23rd and 24th of August by the decisive
battle on Vodice and Kobilek, which opened out the Italian advance over the
south of the Bainsizza plateau, as the victory on Jelenik had already opened it
out over the part to the north.

On the crest and flanks of Vodice both sides had
been entrenched at close quarters ever since the battle in May. The hero of
Vodice was the fine old soldier, General Prince Gonzaga. He combined a complete
control of the operations of his Division with a boyish enjoyment of danger, a
perpetual appearance on the top of the disputed mountain and a gaiety which won
the hearts of his soldiers and of all who came near him.

On the 24th of August
he and his troops had the reward of their long vigil; the whole system of
Austrian trenches running from the farther part of Vodice round, the head of the
Robot valley on to Kobilek itself, after being subjected to a destructive
bombardment, was stormed in the grand style.

Once this obstacle was passed, the pursuit went raging over the Bainsizza
plateau with the dash characteristic of the Italians whenever they are well led. Part of the enemy were driven steeply down into the Gargaro valley and chased
along it to the northern foot of San Gabriele. Monte Santo was turned,
surrounded, and forced to surrender; at long last the "red, white, and green"
waved over the ruined convent on the summit, that Italian eyes had gazed on so
enviously for two long years.

Farther to the north the conquerors of Kobilek, sweeping across the valley in
which Ravne village lies, mounted the limestone crags of the heights beyond,
which might have been easily defended, and had, indeed, been prepared for
defense, but were carried in that first triumphant rush.

On the afternoon of the
24th of August, standing on a line of trenches near Vodice in which the
Austrians had been that morning, Baker and I saw a little string of men, black
against the white limestone, struggling up those heights beyond Ravne, three
miles away as the crow flies. At first we thought they were retreating
Austrians, but presently, when the batteries on Ternovo began to shell them, we
realized that they were the Italians who had a few hours before stormed the
ground we stood on, and were now ranging over hill and valley like hounds on the
trail.

The string of men soon disappeared over the mountain top, where they and
their comrades established on the far side the farthest line that Italy ever
reached before the great Retreat.